Journal article
Reorientating the Focus on Responsibility to Protect to a Responsibility to Prevent
International Journal of the Humanities, Vol.9(6), pp.35-45
International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, 9th (Granada, Spain, 08-Jun-2011 - 11-Jun-2011)
2011
Abstract
The need to prevent violence and to protect people from the excesses of their governments has been preached and argued by many but practical societal, operational, and structural strategies that help prevent the ultimate need for protection in the first place remain mostly idealised principles. Prevention and protection have a complementary relationship, but it is the prioritization of prevention that is lacking in much of the discourse. When the need to protect arises then prevention has failed to protect those most at risk. The glacial progression of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) from concept to principle to formal ratification by most states at the 2005 UN World Summit has been a difficult one with disagreement over the validity of R2P as a substantive or even a formative norm in international affairs. The disagreement is not that protection and prevention are unimportant, nor is it that the international community does not have at least some sort of responsibility in these areas. The disagreement is primarily about how R2P's fine sounding principles are supposed to work in practice, and of what possible use are such "principles" when governments and policy makers continue to ignore the basic premise of responsibility to protect. Even if one can accept the fundamentals of R2P, then there is another significant hurdle to overcome. That is, how do we pre-empt or prevent the need to protect and does a preventative responsibility have any real meaning when protection is itself so difficult? The contention again is not about the value of prevention, rather it is about how we practically implement preventative strategies to lessen the need for protection as a desperate final response.
Details
- Title
- Reorientating the Focus on Responsibility to Protect to a Responsibility to Prevent
- Authors
- John W Janzekovic (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
- Publication details
- International Journal of the Humanities, Vol.9(6), pp.35-45
- Conference details
- International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, 9th (Granada, Spain, 08-Jun-2011 - 11-Jun-2011)
- Publisher
- Common Ground Publishing
- DOI
- 10.18848/1447-9508/CGP/v09i06/43248
- ISSN
- 1447-9508
- Organisation Unit
- School of Law and Society; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Social Sciences - Legacy
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450012002621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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